Livestock and fisheries production Principal Secretary Dr Andrew Tuimur has said his department will spend Sh1 billion to buy surplus milk from farmers, purposely to increase the capacity of strategic reserves of the produce in stores in order to contain future crises.Tuimur has said the move will help in curbing prices of milk across the country in case of any possible shortfall of production."We have been witnessing a heavy shortage of milk supplies due to prolonged dry spells, a situation which translated to the rise of prices of the commodity to an all-time high of Sh80 per 500 milliliters parket," Tuimur said.As such, Smallholder Dairy Commercialisation Programme (SDCP) has been initiated, which is a joint development programme between the Government of Kenya and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). The program is being implemented in various counties of the country with an emphasis on commercialisation of dairy and dairy products through the Market Oriented Dairy Enterprises approach The Programme whose coordination unit is located in Nakuru, commenced in July 2006 and it is expected to run until September 2019.Currently, the country is able to produce 5.2 billion liters of milk but the capacity declined to 3.2b within the last six months.

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